Fowzia Health Foundation - FHF

Our Story
Mariam’s death inspired the birth of the Fowzia Health Foundation in 2015.
While going to the airport for our flight back to America, we noticed two people – a man and an elderly woman – on the roadside waving for help. They had been traveling with the man’s pregnant wife who had been in labor for five days. They first went to Laasanod, but they could not help his wife. They then headed to Galkacayo, the capital city of Mudug region, about several hundred miles, but his wife had a convulsion and died in the middle of nowhere.

They wanted our help to bury her. I inquired about her name and suggested they take her home for a proper burial. In a sad voice, the mother said,” Mariam, she is 19, and she has one son left”. The husband added that their home is 12 hours away and the car was falling apart. He also worried about the body rotting in the hot weather on the way home so, decided it was best to bury her there, in the middle of nowhere – with a full term baby dead inside her.

The Fowzia Health Foundation was born to tackle this preventable human tragedy. FHF is determined to reduce maternal and child deaths by making sure all women and children have access to quality health care in the regions of Somalia, starting with SSC regions.